Lately my friends have been hinting that I seriously should
think about getting a roommate to help alleviate my bleak financial
situation.
A roommate? Only one? Heck, it would take turning my place
into a boarding house to make even a slight dent in my current financial
burden. You figure, in the past month alone, the oven in my gas range
died, the water in my well tested 10
times the allowable levels for arsenic, and my full-house generator system,
which I really need because this area loses power if a hummingbird lands on a
power line, flunked its annual inspection. Add to that the fact that my car has
to be inspected this month and probably will end up needing what sounds like
the inventory list from “Auto Parts R Us,” and I’m destined to be living in a
tent by New Year’s Day.
Anyway, it’s not that I’ve never considered getting a
roommate to help me out, it’s just that I’m a bit nervous about sharing my
home, my sanctuary, with a stranger. I mean, I have visions of some woman rummaging through my dresser drawer and borrowing my granny panties.
“It’s not like the old days, when people could lie about
themselves,” one of my friends said, trying to reassure me. “Now, you can pay
$25 and get a full background check on any potential roommate. If she’s been in
prison for ax-murdering a former roommate, you’ll know all about it!”
I frowned at her. “Well, what if she has a squeaky-clean
background record but has crummy taste in men? What if she brings home her new
boyfriend, who’s a notorious gang member who’s just been released on parole?”
My friend rolled her eyes. “How old do you think your
roommate is going to be anyway? Twenty? No woman our age would have a
boyfriend who’s a gang member – not unless it’s the ‘Sons of Arthritis!’”
Still, even if I did manage to find a suitable roommate, I’m
pretty sure the poor woman would be leaving skid marks running out of my place
within two days, if not sooner.
For one thing, I don’t have a schedule of any type. I eat
when I’m hungry. I sleep when I’m tired. If I’m not tired until five in the
morning, then that’s when I go to bed. And then I’ll get up at 1:00 in the afternoon. If I want to eat dinner at midnight, then
that’s when I eat it. And if the preparation involves using a blender at high
speed, then I use it. There is no one else here to disturb at that hour, so I
don’t care. And I never turn the heat up higher than 67 degrees, even in
sub-zero weather. After all, fleece
clothing was made for a reason.
My roommate also would have to learn to deal with my dogs.
Eden likes other dogs but dislikes people, while Wynter likes people but wants
to dismember other dogs. And not a night goes by when Wynter doesn’t decide
that Eden is one of the dogs she wants to dismember.
Also, nothing is safe here if it lands on the floor. The
floor is the dogs’ territory, and the second anything even touches it, they
swoop in like vultures and grab it so fast, they create a breeze. So if, for
example, my roommate were to drop her hairbrush, she wouldn’t even have time to
bend halfway over to pick it up before it would be tucked away in one of my
dogs’ beds.
To be honest, when it comes right down to it, I’m not
foolish enough to believe I could find someone crazy enough to move in here
anyway. I mean, I can just hear the conversation now...
“I can’t wait for you to move in!” I’d say to my
roommate-to-be. “But there are just a few problems I probably should mention
first. The oven in the gas range doesn’t work, so you’ll have to use either the
microwave or a toaster-oven if you want to bake something. Oh, and don’t drink
the tap water, brush your teeth with it or cook with it, because the filtration
system needs a new part that I can’t afford, so the water is loaded with
arsenic. And when you use the toilet in your bathroom, be sure to jiggle the
handle after you flush, otherwise the water in the tank will continue to run
all day. Lastly, if you want to use your cell phone, the only place around here
where you’ll be able to get a signal is out in the middle of the
main road. Just be really careful of
the oncoming cars.”
Call me a pessimist, but I’m beginning to think I’d have to
pay someone to move in here with me, which kind of would defeat my whole
purpose for getting a roommate in the first place.
So I guess it will have to continue to be just the dogs and
me living here for a while. Maybe I should think about some fancy tricks I
can teach Wynter and Eden – like tap dancing – so they can earn their keep
and help me get everything repaired here.
My friend chuckled when I mentioned it to her. “Heck,” she
said, “by the time you teach those two dogs of yours to do any tricks, you’ll probably
be dead from eating half-baked chicken, drinking arsenic-laced tea, or slipping
in a puddle of leaky-toilet water and cracking your head open on the edge of the
bathtub!”
Now that I think about it, maybe a roommate with a boyfriend
or two who’s on parole might not be so bad after all – especially if one of
them is a decent handyman.
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